an architecture of light

Phillip Gerard, in How to Write a Book That Makes A Difference says building a novel is like building a cathedral. The main problems are to figure out 1) how to get it to stay up, and 2) how to make it have light.

"The problem is to build an architecture of light," he says.

He says both structures involve building an intricate scaffolding, which in the end is dismantled and no one sees.

And that you build a novel, like a cathedral, twice. The first time through is just to get a structure that stays up. The second time is to give it light. He says you cannot tell what your novel is, or how to give it light, until you have that first whole structure in place.